Incidents of sexual violence on rise

Incidents of gender-based violence have been on the rise in the Baglung district recently.

This year, 23 women and children have been subjected to sexual violence in the district. Similarly, out of 60 cases of human rights violations, only 23 are related to rape and attempted rape. According to last year's statistics, there were only 12 incidents of rape and sexual violence.

According to the data compiled by the Informal Sector Service Center (INSEC) Baglung for the inclusion of the Human Rights Year Book 2022, there have been 60 human rights incidents this year, out of which 23 women have been raped and sexually assaulted, said INSEC Baglung representative Sirjana Pant. According to her, there have been 25 incidents of domestic violence and most of them are women. She informed that 60 human rights incidents written by INSEC Baglung from January to November 2021 for the Human Rights Year Book 2022 have been discussed.

According to INSEC District Representative Sirjana Pant, human rights incidents including political rights, child rights, domestic violence, indecent treatment, and attempted murder have been reported. She said that there were 60 incidents of political rights, 15 cases of rape and attempted rape of girls, 25 cases of domestic violence, 8 cases of rape, 4 cases of murder, 3 cases of polygamy, 1 case of indecent behavior, and 2 cases of attempted murder. There were 66 incidents of human rights violations in the last fiscal year. Although there have been cases of human rights violations due to the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a decline in the number of cases reported.

"Incidents of gender-based violence have happened before, but at the present, people have been reporting more of the icidents by keeping their identities secrets," said Kazi Gaonle Shrestha, a civil society coordinator. According to him, sexual violence has been found to be due to rape, forced marriage, patriarchal thinking, psychological influence, and relatives. Women and men in the age group of three to 96 years have been subjected to violence. Most of them are in the age group of 14 to 59 years.

Only three percent of all cases of violence against men and women go to court. He said that most of the victims of gender-based violence belong to the Dalit and lower class communities. He said that INSEC should bring out the incidents of human rights violations hidden in remote areas. "There have been many incidents of human rights violations during the COVID period. The human rights issue during corona pandemic was even more alarming, but it is sad that all these incidents have not come out," he said.

Chief District Officer of Baglung District, Shiva Kumar Karki, said that the district was aware of human rights violations. He said that civil society should be aware of the overall human rights situation of women, children, senior citizens, and persons with disabilities.

Chief of the District Police Office, Baglung, Superintendent of Police Krishna Bahadur Palli Magar said that they are sensitive to prevent human rights violations by the state. He said that the community's view of the real victims was different due to wrong issues and false victims and stressed the need for the stakeholders to be sensitive towards this.